Kealix drew in a few shallow, ragged breaths, his lungs burning as the cold air filled them. The adrenaline had begun to fade, leaving behind the weight of what had just happened. Every heartbeat echoed in his ears, dull and distant, like the fading toll of war drums.
He closed his eye.
"Dismiss," he whispered inwardly, and at his silent command, the twin forces of Flow and Hero began to retreat. The power that had surged through his veins only moments ago—fire and light, clarity and force—began to ebb.
As the energy drained from his body, so too did the radiant colors. The golden gleam of Hero faded first, shimmering away from his attire like flakes of sunlight dissolving in shadow. The indigo trails of Flow followed, unraveling gently from his clothes, then from his skin, like a second heartbeat quietly falling silent.
Even his hair, once threaded with light, dimmed and returned to its natural black—dull, soaked with sweat and blood.
For a moment, Kealix just stood there, still and hollow, as if the absence of power had left him emptier than before.
Was that really all me?
The question came unbidden, heavy and cold.
He hadn't fought like that before. Not ever. Not with that kind of fluidity. That kind of ferocity. He wasn't trained for war. Not like this. He'd always known his place in a fight—and it wasn't surviving twelve monsters alone with one working arm.
But when Flow had taken hold, when Hero had answered… something else had taken over too. His thoughts hadn't just cleared—they'd sharpened. Every strike had felt natural. Every dodge instinctive. His body had moved as if it already knew the rhythm of death.
It hadn't just been focus. It was something deeper. Stronger.
An amplification.
Not just of his body… but of who he could be.
The idea settled in uneasily, and he opened his eye again, already regretting it.
The battlefield greeted him in full.
Blood pooled across the ashen earth, thick and dark like oil. Mangled corpses lay in twisted heaps—limbs bent the wrong way, skulls split wide open, entrails steaming in the cold air. The metallic stench hit him all at once, and with it, a fresh wave of nausea.
He staggered back half a step, hand flying to his mouth.
Gods… what did I do?
It wasn't a victory. It didn't feel like one. Not anymore. Not without Flow to buffer the fear. Not with his mind fully his own again. There was no silence in his head now—only the echo of growls, the memory of warm blood on his face, the image of lifeless eyes staring back at him.
He tried to breathe through it, but the bile rose anyway.
"Well done, young master!" Hero's voice rang out beside him, the golden card hovering gently in the air, its voice warm and full of pride.
"Indeed," Flow added smoothly, his indigo form flickering faintly before fading, "You should be proud of this achievement."
Kealix didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He barely heard them.
His eye was locked on the scene around him. A scene he'd made. And for the first time since the fight ended, the pain in his left arm roared to life.
It was blinding.
Without Flow's numbing influence, every torn muscle, every shattered nerve screamed in protest. He clenched his teeth against the pain, staggering as he fought to remain upright. Blood continued to soak his shoulder, running in dark rivulets down his side. The limb hung completely limp—useless.
His breathing quickened, panic scraping at the edges of his mind.
He'd killed them all.
And he hadn't even realized how.
The strength... the violence... the precision... it had all felt so easy.
And now?
Now, all he could feel was the aftermath.
And the sick, gnawing fear that this was only the beginning of what those cards could do.
"Fuck!" Kealix screamed, the word torn from his throat as the pain surged through his body like fire.
It wasn't just a throb. It was consuming. A raw, pulsing agony that radiated from his torn arm and seeped into every nerve, threatening to drown his thoughts in white heat.
His knees buckled slightly, but he stayed standing—barely.
"I need… I need answers," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Truth, come out. Show me how it work, I need to know now!"
His voice cracked, low and desperate now, but filled with urgency.
A soft hum followed. Then, a gentle voice, calm and ancient, replied.
"What is it, youngling?" Truth's tone was warm, like moonlight over still water. It made Kealix's ragged breathing slow by just a fraction.
"I need to know how my abilities work," he said, forcing the words out as the pain gnawed at him. "All of them. Not just what the cards let me do... what I can do."
He'd relied on Flow. On Hero. On their overwhelming force and their clarity. But without them now—just Kealix, wounded and reeling—he realized how blind he'd been.
There was no future if he didn't understand what he really had. He had to stop being a passenger.
Truth paused, thoughtful in the silence that followed. Then finally answered:
"Very well."
The white card pulsed once—then exploded into light.
Kealix winced, shielding his eyes as a brilliant cascade of glowing strands enveloped his vision. The forest faded behind the shimmer. When he blinked again, he was no longer in the same place.
The air smelled the same—crimson leaves and ashen grass—but the terrain had shifted.
A lake stretched out before him, glassy and silver beneath a pale sky. Beyond it, sitting quietly on a flat stone, was... himself.
Kealix furrowed his brow. "What the—"
That was definitely him. Same hair. Same torn clothes. Same exhausted posture. But he was sitting, focused, like he was meditating.
Visions… he realized.
This is what Truth meant. It wasn't just a display of power—it was a memory. A window into potential. He could only see how it worked by witnessing it himself. Feeling it from a step removed.
Kealix stepped forward unconsciously, drawn to the other version of himself.
The other him sat in perfect stillness—then suddenly cried out as his injured arm lifted, engulfed in a shifting grey light. The scream echoed through the forest, raw and sharp—but the concentration on his face never broke. In fact, it hardened.
Muscle and sinew rippled unnaturally, bones twisting under the light. The vision didn't spare any detail—tendons snapping, flesh warping, blood mixing with grey energy.
Then it changed.
The glow faded, and in its place, a new arm remained. Metallic. Sleek, jointed like armor, but forged from his own body.
A weapon. A construct. A piece of him, remade.
Kealix's pain had faded here, dulled by the vision. All he could do was stare in fascination.
So… that's how it works. Not granted. Not summoned. Created. Through focus, through will—and through unimaginable pain.
"Gods," he muttered to himself, eyes wide. "I really can do this."
But it wasn't easy. It came at a cost. And if he was going to survive this cursed world, he had to start paying it.
This is my best shot, he thought, clenching his fists. No more waiting on someone to save me. No more just drawing power and hoping it's enough.
The vision began to dissolve again, that familiar white light rising like mist. Kealix closed his eye just as the blinding glow overtook him—then opened it to find himself back in the ashen battlefield, the taste of blood still thick in the air.
And the pain… oh, it came back all at once.
A feral growl left his throat as his ruined arm flared with agony again. He didn't hesitate.
"Mentor!" he barked, desperation sharpened to purpose now.
A new card emerged—this one shimmering with a cool azure glow. The blue light curled around him, soothing in contrast to the searing pain.
"Yes, my student," the voice answered smoothly, "Let's begin."
Kealix didn't even nod. The moment the card activated, he let himself merge with it.
Suddenly, his mind ignited.
Thoughts, once clouded by pain and fear, now surged with clarity. Possibilities unfolded like blueprints across his inner vision. Every mechanism, every structure, every magical pathway mapped itself out with terrifying speed.
Mentor amplified intelligence. Not just book knowledge—creative intelligence. Engineering. Alchemy. Magical theory. Everything he needed to design what he'd just seen in the vision.
But there was a catch.
The moment Mentor leaves, Kealix thought grimly, I forget all of it. Whatever I create, whatever abilities the new arm has... I'll have to rediscover them on my own.
It was a harsh trade—but a necessary one.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's get to work."
Kealix lowered himself slowly against the base of a white tree. His breath trembled in his chest as he slid down to sit. The moment his back hit the trunk, he closed his eye tightly and clenched his jaw.
This was it.
There was no turning back now.
He gritted his teeth, every muscle tensed in anticipation. For the first time in his life, his focus was razor-sharp—narrowed to a singular point. Nothing existed beyond this moment. Not the blood-soaked forest. Not the carnage. Not even the pain—yet.
His arm began to glow.
But not like in the vision.
This light was alive, pulsing with strange colors—white-silver, yes, but threaded through with deep hues of violet, electric blue, and burning orange. The kind of light that didn't just illuminate, but promised something unknowable. Dangerous. Brilliant.
Kealix didn't see it. His eyes remained shut, ironclad in concentration. He didn't need to look. He could feel every arc of energy flowing into the limb, feel it crawling beneath the skin, whispering through the bone.
Then it began.
The scream tore from his throat before he even knew it was coming.
A sharp, guttural cry of agony, raw enough to make his voice crack. He doubled over slightly, instinctively grabbing the shoulder of his transforming arm as if that would dull the pain.
It didn't.
If anything, it made it worse.
His bones snapped, loud and wet inside his flesh. Tendons stretched, then split. Muscles twisted into shapes that should never exist, and still—he held his focus.
Because he had to. If he let his mind break for even a second, if he gave in to the suffering, it would all collapse. The transmutation would fail. The limb would become a ruin of flesh and metal and madness.
So he stayed. Locked in. Teeth grinding so hard he thought they'd shatter. Eyes clenched shut so tightly it burned. He couldn't even scream again. The pain had gone beyond that—into silence. Into pressure and survival.
Seconds passed. Or minutes. He didn't know. Time had vanished.
Then—suddenly—it was over.
The glow faded.
The forest returned.
Kealix slumped forward, breath ragged. Sweat dripped from his face onto the forest floor as he finally opened his eye.
He looked down—and stared in awe.
His arm… wasn't an arm anymore.
It was white-silver metal, sleek and segmented, but fluid like muscle. Hints of violet, orange, and deep cerulean glowed faintly through thin seams that traced along the forearm, the wrist, the knuckles. The metal had a quiet shimmer, almost translucent in certain angles, like it existed halfway between reality and something arcane.
It didn't end at the shoulder either.
The transformation extended, latching into his upper body—metal curling over his trap, his pectoral, even across the edge of his lat. The lines were elegant but sharp, forming an integrated design like armor and conduit all at once.
He could feel something inside it. Hollow, but humming. Like a contained storm waiting to be tapped.
The core, he realized. That's the power core Mentor designed.
He didn't know exactly how it worked—not anymore. Mentor had left the moment the transmutation finished. The clarity, the intelligence, the godlike understanding was gone now, leaving only memory fragments and gut instinct.
But even without understanding the specifics… Kealix knew.
This was not just a replacement. It was not just a weapon.
It was his.
Forged in pain. Focused by will. Crafted with purpose.
He exhaled slowly, finally leaning back against the tree. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. Everything ached. His nerves were still sizzling from the transformation, but he didn't care.
I don't know what it can do yet, he thought, flexing the new fingers of the arm—each one precise, silent, terrifyingly responsive. But it will be enough. Mentor designed it… and I endured it.
He tilted his head back against the tree, letting the stillness of the ashen forest settle over him like a fragile veil.
But he didn't notice how quickly the light was fading—how the shadows crept in from the edges of the trees.
Night was coming. And it wasn't coming gently.